These little lion and tiger cubs play happily together like brothers
and sisters.

The pack of youngsters live with surrogate mum 46-year-old Riana Van
Nieuwenhuizen who looks after them in her HOUSE.

For full story and pictures:

Riana, from Bloemfontein, South Africa, hand-reared the three white
lions, two tigers and two golden lions when they were just tiny babies.

Now the energetic cubs enjoy having the run of her small home,
climbing curtains, sleeping in her bed and poking their heads around
the kitchen.

Tiger cubs Atrara and Armageddon are nine-months-old, golden lions
Roxy and Freckles are four months, and white lions Vanilla, Snowball
and Snowflake are just seven weeks.

The cubs all come from local game parks who give them to Riana to hand-
rear until they’re big enough to fend for themselves.

“In captivity it’s common for the mother to abandon one or two of her
cubs,” said Riana, who also has four full grown cheetahs and two
wolves of her own.

“When they are tiny I bottle feed them all through the night and day.”

Riana keeps her pride indoors, and when they are small the cubs sleep
in a baby’s cot, but when they’re big enough they invade her bed.

“It’s too cold for the cubs outside so they have free rein indoors
with me,” said Riana, who is single but has lots of friends to help
with the animals.

“They love to sharpen their claws on my table legs and sleep on my
clean piles of washing.

“When I’m cooking they come and poke their noses into everything and
try and open cupboards with their paws.

“I have stopped having curtains. They just get ripped down and torn to
shreds!”

The cubs have razor sharp teeth but Riana says she’s never been
bitten, although her furniture takes a heavy battering.

“They break things every day,” said Riana, who has been obsessed with
wild cats since she was a child.

“They jump on things and sweep things off the tables with their tails.
I don’t have any glasses left. My family think I am mad and they won’t
come and stay over night.

“Wild cats can’t be house trained so I’m constantly clearing up after
them.”

Surprisingly the animals all get along harmoniously and their
surrogate mum never has to break up a fight.

“There is no aggression because they do not have to compete for food,”
said Riana who happily watches them play with her Jack Russell Chloe.

“It’s like heaven here, they act like old friends,” she said.

The bigger the cubs get the more havoc they cause and as they reach
adulthood Riana will send her feline friends back to the safari park.

“It breaks my heart to lose the animals,” said Riana, who has raised
over 50 cheetahs, lions, tigers and leopards in the last 15 years.

“I cry every time and pine for days but you can never own wild animals.

“You can come close to them and love them but you must always respect
them. They own you.

“These animals definitely own me but that is what makes me tick.”

Riana’s sanctuary is run entirely on donations and sometimes she falls
dangerously low on funds.

“I would rather starve than see the animals go without,” she said.

“I possess very little but I feel like the richest person on earth.
They are my whole life I absolutely adore them.”

To make a donation to help Riana care for the animals visit
www.cheetahexperience.com
or email funds@cheetahexperience.com.

Words by Isla Harvey

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